WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

Currently thinking about a battle system idea that came to me out of nowhere the other day. Seems like it would be pretty awesome once implemented. I'm actually taking notes.

I got the idea while thinking about what could make the final battle of what is probably going to be my second RPG, currently titled Knight's Oath, more satisfying. What began as a way to give the last phase of the final boss a gimmick to make it a duel between the hero and the BBEG slowly morphed into something way more complex, something that would have to be the main battle system of its game. And, as a battle system based on duels, it would have a party of one.

If I had to describe it shortly, it's what happens when a JRPG and a fighting game concieve a child. Much like its fighing game parent, it consists of several rock-paper-scissors type decisions done in sequence, but turn based instead of real time.

Picture two swordsmen facing each other. You have four options: attack high, attack low, block high, or block low. Your opponent chooses one of those four options as well, in a double blind scenario. From there, you have five possible outcomes:
- You both block. Nothing happens and the game state is reset.
- You both attack the same area. Your weapons clash and the game state is reset.
- You both attack, but choose different areas. You both take low damage and then the game state resets.
- One player attacks, and the second player blocks the wrong area. The defender takes low damage and the attacker gets to initiate a combo.
- One player attacks, and the defender blocks the attack. The defender gets to do a counterattack.

And why do the initial attacks all deal low damage? That is because the first blow is mostly to take the opponent off balance. See that thing about combos? That's where the real damage is! After landing the first strike, you continue to attack while your opponent is forced to defend himself, but you can now also attack mid. That means that you have a 2/3 chance of landing another strike, this time a really damaging one. Of course, combos can't last forever, but I'll go into the mechanics that deal with that after I talk about something else.

And to be honest, I still haven't figured out what advantage countering an attack would give you. I'm still woring on that. It can't just go into the combo just like a successful opening strike, it has to have some difference, even if small.

After that, let's add some extra elements. Let's add something from its fighting game influence, a special bar. It works as expected, it builds up as you deal and take damage, and some skills use up a part of it. The actions I'll talk about from now on may have a cost associated, but I haven't gotten far enough to deal with that yet.

The second element we add that makes the whole thing come together is space. Your possible actions may change depending on how close you are to your opponent, and you can change your position with some actions as well.

For example, you can jump back to evade attacks. This is a very strong action that lets you evade attacks regardless of which section they cover and resets the fight. It has some drawbacks, though. If you use it too much, you may put yourself against a corner, which reduces your mobility and gives your opponent a significant offfensive advantage because of that. Or if you use it too close to the opponent, a particularly long reaching attack may catch you on the tail end of the jump.

Other things you may do are a charge attack that brings you closer to your opponent, a guard breaking attack, an attack that can be blocked regardless of the area blocked but beats other attacks, a particularly powerful combo attack that can be blocked in two ways, a shove... There's room for creativity. Magical and ranged attacks (throwing daggers?), as well as status effects, are not entirely out of the question, although I'm focusing on melee combat for now. (I'm particularly interested in how I could implement status in something like this.)

And as for combos, each strike in the combo, with maybe some rare exceptions, pushes the opponent back a bit, meaning that he'll end up out of reach of your strikes, forcing you to end the combo. This leaves some design space for combo finishers, skills that end the combo and reset the fight's state regardless of where the opponent is, which rewards you for knowing when your combos end and popping the finisher at the right time, instead of swinging wildly and being surprised when one of your attacks hits air. Also, obviously, pulls can be used to extend combos.

And you would only have a limited ammount of those special skills avaliable in a fight. There's a lot of room for customization by choosing the skills you want to pack. Want to overwhelm opponents with guard breaks? Perform long combos by chaining attacks with long reach and pulls? Play defensively by keeping the opponent away with pushes and occasionally striking when an opportunity presents itself? Fight with a counter based style, waiting for the opponent to strike so you can punish them for it? Just choose the right skills for the job! This could actualy be interesting with a multiplayer element!

But, of course, I am far away from having the coding skill necessary to make this, as awesome as it sounds. When I get to that stage, I think the best thing to do would be a short proof of concept game, with not much story. Just a simple game about a gladiator fighting his way up.

And, of course, nothing is set in stone. Anything I wrote about here is subject to change, of course. It's just a very rough idea now.

End wall of text.